


Empty Threats

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks (Pink_and_Purple_Daisies)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Blood and Injury, Bruce is in the background, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Hurt Jason Todd, Hurt Tim Drake, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: Dick knows what he expects to find when he walks into that warehouse; he expects blood.He expects Hood, looming over his little brother with a weapon in hand, smiling cruelly.That's not what he finds.Companion Piece to Envysparkler's "padded cuffs". Not a standalone.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 44
Kudos: 735





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [padded cuffs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980000) by [envysparkler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler). 



> I have an exam tomorrow.
> 
> Guess what I'm not doing?
> 
> Envy left this dangling thread in front of me, so obviously I had to grab at it. I had no choice. So, for your consideration, Dick's POV of _That Scene_ in "padded cuffs". It's a short, low-effort piece, but I had to get it out of my system. I'm not very confident with writing Dick's POV, but I tried.

“I’m sure our Oracle overlord could tell you exactly where your missing bird’s tracker is, Batman. You really need me to be redundant?”

When the words come through his comms in Hood’s mechanized, faux-casual tones, Dick’s vision goes white. He’s taunting them. He’s hurt Tim before, is about to do it again, and he’s _taunting them_

His mind flashes back to Hood’s first appearances - to Tim, beaten and broken on the floor of Titan’s tower, his blood tainting the walls of a room that will never feel clean again, and Dick burns.

“What are you doing to him?” he snaps, the words escaping almost as if not his own, over the cacophony of voices on his comms.  
And Hood taunts.

“Ah-ah, N, the question is what could I do to him!”

Anger wells up from a point deep inside his chest, a bubble of something hot and ugly that he does his best to hold back on most days, but this time Dick lets it expand, lets it sear through his body, all the way to his fingertips. That’s his little brother in danger.

“I could keep him, for example,” Hood says, as if he’s making light conversation, mocking Dick with his ease, “Clip his wings and hide him in a cage. Maybe send some presents back. A finger, week by week.”

“Hood,” Batman snarls, but Dick can’t even form words, only shout in formless rage.

Frenzied energy courses through him, focussed on nothing but finding his brother, on preventing another tragedy. Oracle jumps onto his comm with coordinates, but he's gone before they're even fully spoken - shoots off above the city with razor focus. His feet find all the perfect ledges with the ease of long familiarity, and he lets his body take over, honed instinct and natural grace driving him in leaps and bounds between buildings of all heights. He doesn’t need to stop, doesn’t need to think about his next jump. He only _goes_.

“That’d be two and half months before he runs out,” Hood keeps saying, his voice high and tight with hidden glee. Dick tries not to gag over the mental picture - there’s time for that later. “Do you think you’d find him before then? Or would I have to resort to something else to motivate you?”

The address is in the bowery.

That’s not that far, but it feels like half a world away.

Every step of distance between him and his little brother is too much.

“Maybe the eyes,” Hood muses, “Those perfect, blue eyes. I have to admit, it would be interesting to watch a blind bird try to learn how to fly.”

Dick almost does gag that time.

“If you’ve touched a hair on his head, Hood,” he snarls, but Hood doesn’t give him the time to gather his composure.

Then, twisted and cruel, just as the warehouse appears before Dick -

“Too late, Wing.” His heart stops.

_No._

No, there’s no way he failed this badly, _let Tim be hurt like that when he’s so close_. He can’t have failed another brother like that.

Dick’s the first one there, and he knows what he expects to see when he walks in; he expects blood.

He expects Hood, standing there with a bleeding Tim in his arms. Hood looming over his little brother with a weapon in hand, smiling cruelly as he breaks bones and taunts Dick in that same casual tone. He expects chains, and Tim dangled like a trophy before them. It pings something at the back of his mind, that it doesn’t make sense for Hood to taunt the family that way while sitting there and waiting to be caught, to make himself a sitting duck for angry vigilantes, but rage doesn’t care for reason, and Dick’s is burning like a raging inferno.

It’s not a standing, grinning Hood he finds. It’s an unconscious Tim, limp and helpless on the ground, with Hood crouching just above him.

His heart seizes.

“Hood!” he shouts.

The word barely makes it out, though. He doesn’t wait to see more, doesn’t wait for Hood to act, only closes the distance between them, yanking Hood away from his little brother before he can do anything more. Red - that’s the first thing he sees, blood stains, dark and splotchy against his suit, vivid against the fresh bandages.

That’s when his brain stalls, and a sick feeling washes over him.

Something’s wrong.

The air smells sharp and tangy, it curls around Dick with sharp talons, and he’s moving before he knows it - always have a spare rebreather, it’s rule number one, as ingrained as any backflip, and he has it around his head before he's done processing the thought.

Fear gas, and blood, and fresh bandages; “stay aware of any threats” translates into “watch out for Hood” except his brain stalls again on that, because Hood isn’t _doing anything_.

So he does a field-conditioned reassess, and takes quick note of priorities.

Tim has his rebreather on, so the fear toxin poisoning the air goes to the backburner. He’s wounded, but alive, and the bandages are fresh. Probably safe for another moment.

Hood… hood isn’t attacking him.

Hood isn’t doing _anything_.

Hood is still where Dick shoved him on the ground, shaking and gasping for breath-

\- gasping... around the… contaminated air. Because there’s no spare rebreather in sight. Other than the one fastened to Tim’s face.

 _God damnit_.

A sinking feeling forms at the pit of his stomach, pieces falling together to form a pattern that Dick doesn’t want to complete.

“B, get your ass over here, now,” he rasps into the comms, regardless, and ignores the renewed noise on the line as everyone panics, because he has no answers for them.

The unease from earlier takes shape into something much more cutting, and Dick finds himself checking Tim’s belt for supplies, trying to answer his suspicions even as he moves one hand to press onto the heavily bleeding wound.

“B, I need backup here now,” he snaps. He finds Tim's spare bandages in his belt, all accounted for, and looks at the ones on his wounds with a sick sort of comprehension. The blood on Hood’s hands paints one, chilling picture, but Tim’s bandaged wounds say something else.

“I’m almost on your location, Nightwing. Report!”

“I can’t. Just get over here. Wear a rebreather.”

He cuts off the comms with numb fingers. The rest of his body feels equally numb, his previous rage washed out by a cold wave that has him shaking.

Tim’s rebreather is right where it’s supposed to be - safe in his utility belt.

Dick doesn’t want to put the pieces together.

He’s not sure how long it takes Bruce to reach them, but he doesn’t wait for the questions to start. “He’s going to need field surgery,” he says, the moment Bruce is there. “Bullet to the hip, still lodged in. Heavy bleeding - probable artery damage. He’ll bleed out before we reach the cave, and that’s not counting secondary damage.”

He doesn’t need to see the way Bruce stalls at the sight of Jason, to know that he does.

And then, “Jason saved him.”

Because all the signs point to that, and no matter how much he wants to ignore them, he’s been trained as a detective since he first donned the yellow cape.

A sharp breath is the only reaction, but from Bruce, it might as well be open gaping.

“I’ll get him to the cave. He’s been breathing fear toxin for a while. You fix Tim.”

“Good.” Bruce drops down in front of him, and Dick has to get his hand to move, to pull away and let Bruce take over, no matter how frozen to the spot he feels. “Monitor the Comms and make sure the situation is handled safely. The batmobile is just outside the building, contact Agent A to send the second one to my location once you leave. And, Dick-”

Dick stops. Batman never calls him by name in the field. But then, it’s not Batman speaking when he says-

“Get him home safe.”

Dick swallows. And nods, once.

Jason is heavy. Dick never let himself think about how big Jason has gotten, since the times he used to be a scrawny teen that Dick could pick up like a pack of sweets, but he feels it now, when he tries to lift him up and almost drops him. He’s almost as big as Bruce, just as heavy, too, and it’s only years of practice dragging Bruce out of danger that allows him to get Jason to the car.

Jason’s still shaking, when Dick drops him in the backseat. He wonders, then, just how long Jason has been sitting there, inhaling Fear Gass and putting pressure on a wound that would have bled out long before any of them would have even noticed that Tim was missing, and that-

A lump forms in his throat, and he nearly chokes on it. Tim could have died.

Tim _would_ have died if Jason hadn’t been there.

Jason might still go into shock from Fear Toxin overdose.

His hands shake on the steering wheel as he rushes them to the cave, heedless of traffic rules and radio chatter and Jason’s whimpers in the background.

He didn’t ask for help.

Dick unclenches his jaw, grips the steering wheel tighter, and breathes against the urge to scream. Jason saved Tim, put himself in harm’s way, got them there in record time, and never once asked for help, and Dick is abruptly reminded of a tiny thirteen year old who stashed food in his room, walked on eggshells in the mansion, and never once told them he needed something for fear they wouldn’t care.

Of a fifteen year old who almost grew out of it.

“Do you have to be so dramatic, you little shit?” he mutters, instead of all the things he really wants to say. Jason, predictably, doesn’t respond.

That’s fine. He’ll get his little brother to the cave, and get him safe. Then, they can fix it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick's whole body racks as the first sob escapes his parched throat, and he needs to be better, needs to be _stronger_ , but suddenly he can't hold back the tears as the weight of the entire day bores down on his shaking shoulders.
> 
> The door is a steady weight, a wall between him and his family.
> 
> He can be strong for them again in just a few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm horrible at sticking to commitments, so here I am, back with another chapter of "Dick's sudden bout of introspection" instead of any of my other wips, because I was talking to Envy in the comments and realized how awful this day probably was for him. I'm also part-way through another vampire AU chapter, so maybe I'll get around to that soon, but I've learned not to make promises lol.
> 
> Dunno gals, this one isn't great, but I don't think it's getting any better. It's mostly introspection again, but that's pretty much my thing, I'm coming to accept.
> 
> This doc is titled "Dick's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day" in my drive.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

Tim wakes up with a groan and a grumble, shooting a tired glare in Dick’s direction, but Dick was never happier to see his little brother wake up as opposed to going to sleep, so he’s happy to ignore the hostility.

“Gave us all a scare, little red. How are you feeling?”

The grumbling takes a distinctly displeased tone, and Dick laughs.

It feels a bit like the weight on his chest easing, like taking a small breath after being crushed by the weight of the ocean for hours. 

“Wha’ happen’?” Tim asks, squinting at Dick with tired eyes.

“You got shot, little red. Pretty badly, too. Freaked everyone out.”

Tim groans. “Yeah,” he declares after a second, “tha’ tracks. Everyth’n hur’s.”

It’s instinct, reaching out the way he does, to settle his fingers in Tim’s hair - but this is the first time he freezes. His whole body constricts before he can touch Tim, as the phantom screams of his other brother resound in his mind unbidden, fresh and gut wrenching, and it hits him like a tidal wave.

Tim, half-asleep, misses his hiccup, so Dick pushes down the urge to vomit and pets his brother.

“We just gave you a dose of painkiller, so it should be kicking in about now,” he says instead, running his fingers gently through cowl-messy hair.

“Hmm,” Tim half-humms, half-groans. “Y’look like shit. ‘D’you sleep?”

Dick chokes back a laugh, but doesn’t miss the irony in his answer when he says “I’m fine.”

By his look, Tim doesn’t miss it, either, but he accepts it. “Scarecrow?”

There’s tangles catching in his fingers, that Dick works through carefully. “Contained,” he says. “The others handled him while we got you home.”

“We?”

Dick _does_ cringe, this time. “Yeah. Like I said, you gave us a good scare, baby bro. Big B brought you home himself.”

Tim’s already white complexion manages the performance of paling dramatically. Dick sighs, scratching gently at the kid’s scalp. “It’s ok, don’t worry. Everything was handled just fine even without him on the scene,” he tries to explain, to assuage worries that they never really managed to work out with the kid, but Tim is shaking from more than just the pain, now.

“You said ‘we’,” Tim croaks. “Why did it take you both? Dick, what happened?”

Worry and panic are overwhelming his pain and common sense, now. Dick knows he has to reassure the kid that he did nothing wrong to ‘keep them away from the mission’, and the truth will help more than any empty platitudes, but he isn’t sure how Tim will take a discussion about Jason, in his state.

Still.

“Jason saved you,” he says finally.

And Tim freezes.

“Who what?”

He huffs. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Almost gave me a panic attack, too. Went on about how he was going to gouge out your eyes and send them in the mail, but then I found him choking on fear gas to bandage your wounds.” He sighs, still strung up from the entire ordeal. The terror he’d felt for Tim’s safety hadn’t yet abated - only compounded on. “Bruce is with him in the med-bay, now.”

Which is a nice way of saying that Bruce is currently an emotional wreck standing vigil over a terrified Jason. Dick has been making rounds between the medbay and Tim’s room, but hopefully he can let up now that Tim is -

Tim is squinting at him.

“What?”

“’m workin’ through that. So he threatn’d me? Or ‘d he save me?”

“Uh, both? Definitely both. I mean, the threatening was all show, but yeah, both.”

A goofy smile settles onto Tim’s face. “Jason sav’d me.”

Dick snorts. “He sure did.” All else aside, his little brother is ok. Things could be worse.

“I wanna see’im. Bring me there?”

Dick holds back a cringe. “I’m not sure…”

 _I’m not sure about that,_ he’s about to say.

 _I’m not sure it’s ok to have you around him_ he means.

_I’m not sure I trust him around you._

It’s instinct, and, _oh_.

Isn’t that just the problem.

That his first instinct is to distrust Jason. 

“I’m not sure he’s up, yet, and he needs all the rest he can get,” he says, instead. Tim squints at him, but thankfully the kid is too high to truly follow that line of thought, since Dick doesn’t have the energy to deflect right now. “I’ll go check with Bruce. We can visit them when he’s better.”

Tim seems content with that.

***

Bruce is a wreck. Jason’s visions have been getting worse, and he said _something_ to Bruce, because between one visit and the next, Dick found him looking like he’s aged ten years.

At least the toxin is finally out of his system. All that’s left is for him to sleep it off.

Dick hasn't counted how many hours have passed since he last slept. He'd rather not find out, either, going by how wrung out he feels. Tim is out of the woods, Bruce is rooted to the med-bay chair, and Jason is finally asleep - finally out of the grips of that horrid toxin, no longer screaming those heart-wrenching pleads that Dick can't rip his thoughts away from no matter how much he wants to. He wants to cry.

He wants to sleep.

The door to his bedroom shuts behind him with a resounding thud, and whatever force of will was holding him together just - saps away.

His whole body crumbles.

His bed never looked that tempting, nor that far away. The door is right there behind him though, heavy and solid and _so much closer than his bed _, he can lean on it just for a few seconds, just to gather his strength, and then he can have a nap, just 20 minutes, and get back to his family, who need him to be strong for them. He can just lean back - he can - he's crying.__

__His whole body racks as the first sob escapes his parched throat, and he needs to be better, needs to be _stronger_ , but suddenly he can't hold back the tears as the weight of the entire day bores down on his shaking shoulders._ _

__The door is a steady weight, a wall between him and his family._ _

__He can be strong for them again in just a few minutes._ _

____

***

Dick looks at the way Jason’s arms move to hug Tim as if by instinct, and it hurts.

Tim is teasing Jason. “Knew you were a good guy,” he says, like it’s that simple. Like despite everything, despite their first meeting and despite being arguably the most cynical one of them, some part of Tim had held onto a faith in Jason that Dick had discarded so easily.

Still, he can’t quite hold back his laughter at Tim’s teasing. It's funny enough on its own, the _"fearsome Red Hood"_ , cuddling a snarky kid in a small bed, but in light of everything, he looks at them and sees something different from before.

Sees _Jason_ , and oh, how had Dick ever forgotten how much of his little brother’s anger has always been for show? Ever since he was a scrawny twelve-year old, hiding his insecurities by snapping at everyone in the family like a cornered kitten, anger had been Jason’s most familiar mask, and it still is now, as he’s snarking and snapping in anger even while holding Tim to his chest and running gentle fingers through his hair like it's the most natural thing.

Why did Dick start taking that anger at face value after he came back?

It’s startlingly clear, suddenly, how little the core of him had changed. All the things that made him Jason are still there, Dick had just let himself miss them.

 _We’ll fix it_ , he thinks, again. Thinks stronger. His little brother is never again going to let himself be slowly poisoned to save someone, for fear that none of them would help him.

If brotherly teasing can be a tool to that end, well. Nobody in this family ever claimed that a little blackmail wasn’t fair, and Dick does have a phone full of free memory. He can’t possibly miss this opportunity.

He would join them - aches for it, for the comfort of feeling both of them close after being so afraid for them. But… But.

He manages to pet Jason’s hair without having his hand bitten off, and that’s a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *reads shallow water blackout*  
> Me: *starts using water-related metaphors*

**Author's Note:**

> This doc is titled "It's Envy's fault" in my drive.
> 
> I have a [personal Tumblr](https://i-preen-for-oikawa.tumblr.com/), but I'm also trying to get my [writing one](https://i-write-midnight-snacks.tumblr.com/) off the ground, so maybe check it out!


End file.
